Now Voyeur
by Procrastinatrix
Summary: Rita Skeeter's been snooping around. Severus Snape is determined to stop her from publishiing anything incriminating, but he may get more than he bargained for. SnapeRita. All in good fun.


**Disclaimer:** The characters and world of _Harry Potter_ belong toJ.K. Rowling. This story is entirely unauthorised.

**A/N: **This 'fic was written for a Rita Skeeter ficathon challengs, and should on no account be taken too seriously.

* * *

**Now Voyeur**

Sometimes, Rita Skeeter reflected, the life of a first class journalist was not as glamorous as it ought to be. She had good incentive to think that at the moment, for she was perched under the damp-stained eaves of the Hog's Head Inn, possibly the seediest (and certainly the least cleaned) pub in Wizarding Britain.

The reason for this ignominious position was standing in the doorway just below her, unaware that amid the collection of bugs and beetles above him was one with most un-beetlelike powers of observation. His attention was instead focussed on a distant turn in the road where a red-robed figure had just come into view. Both Rita and her quarry waited, she occasionally snapping her wing case, he sporadically wrinkling his hawk-like nose in an impatient sniff, and neither with much sympathy for the laboured pantings of the approaching figure. At last he drew level and waved a breathless salutation.

"Do you make a habit of keeping your customers waiting like this, Fletcher?"

"Why, you going to complain to my manager, Snape?" Fletcher gave him a wink and laughed, but broke off short when he saw the stony expression on the other man's face. "Sorry, sorry," he huffed. "But it's not easy to lay hands on this sort of stuff straight off, y'know."

He reached into his robes and Rita flew down to the lintel to try to catch a glimpse of his cargo. He was holding a small bottle full of dark green roots, but she could not tell at this distance which of a hundred plants - both legal and illegal - it might be. Herbology had never been her forte.

Fletcher moved to place the bottle in Snape's outstretched hand, then suddenly seemed to reconsider and clasped it tighter in his fingers.

"What do you want this for, anyway?" he asked with suspicion.

Snape made a low gutteral noise of impatience. "You're in no place to ask such questions," he spat.

Rita could not see Fletcher's expression, his face being obscured by the brim of his hat, but his next words told her, much to her annoyance, that he was cowed by Snape's imperious manner.

"Alright, alright. Just like to know how much trouble I'm getting myself connected to. I have other customers to consider, you know. Be a damn shame for them if I ended up in Azkaban. I've heard it from a chap I know that those roots can be used for some nasty stuff, is all."

Snape gave a sharp snarl that may at some primordial level have been related to a laugh. "'A chap you know' is of course the highest authority one can seek on matters of this nature. Unfortunately, the Ministry seem to share your sources. A wand can be a dangerous weapon if misused, but they let every idiot with a spark of magic have one of those. Even you. Get back to peddling substandard cauldrons, Fletcher. And next time remember who is paying whom."

Fletcher removed his hat to wipe his brow, and Rita saw him cast a longing look at the door of the inn, but with a last diffident look at Snape he turned on his heel and made his way back down the alley. Snape disappeared into the darkness of the pub.

Rita descended from her perch and spindly beetle legs became long, shapely and fishnet clad; supporting once more the chic form of Rita Skeeter, investigative reporter and world class gossipmonger. With a satisfied smile she set off after Fletcher, her high heels clicking on the cobbles. She didn't notice the scowling face that watched her go from the grimy window in the inn's door.

--

_Curse the woman!_

Snape seethed as he stalked down a dark side street. He almost walked headlong into a Muggle dustbin as his thoughts churned angrily through the same questions he had been asking himself all evening. Where on earth had she come from? How much had she heard? What would Dumbledore make of it if his Potions Master's private business concerns were splashed all over her rag of a paper tomorrow? Where on earth _had_ she come from?

This wouldn't do, he knew. If he was to rectify his error he would need to calm himself or he would be detected. As he drew closer to his destination, he endeavoured to school his thoughts, and slipped into the now familiar habits he had honed long ago. His breathing slowed, his movements became more controlled, his footfall was now almost silent. He cast a shrewd eye over the building ahead. The windows on the third floor were dark, as he had hoped they would be. Rita Skeeter it seemed was in some respects a creature of habit, despite her knack for showing up in the most unexpected and unwelcome of places.

Pointing his wand at the back door, he concentrated and the Muggle lock clicked open. The door swung back. Skeeter's own door would probably offer more resistance, but he had come prepared. Sure enough, there was a gamut of charms in place to protect her apartment. Some of them, Snape had to admit, were quite inventive. However, the Potions Master found his way inside without triggering any alarm. She ought to have known better than to play spy games with Ihim/I he thought with a self-satisfied smile.

_"Lumos."_

Taking care to keep his wand light dim and lower than the level of the window he cast a shrewd eye around the room. There in the corner, next to the preposterously lavish bed, was a sleek wooden writing desk, strewn with papers. Leaving the door ever so slightly ajar, Snape crossed the room and began to exam them. One sheaf lay in the centre of the desk, the top sheet only half covered with the elegant handwriting which filled the rest. If she had written a story about him, he surmised, it would be here. Taking care to disturb nothing else, he grabbed the pile of parchment and began to sort through it.

He scanned the first page for his name, then the second. Suddenly a word caught his eye and he stopped. He read it again. He read the whole sentence. Ignoring the chair by the desk he sat down on the floor next to the bed and reread the entire page from the start. His eyes narrowed and he looked once more at the unfinished sheet he had picked up first. Finally he shuffled through the papers until he found what he was looking for about fifty pages back and, all concerns of being found forgotten, he began to read. Occasionally he twitched and shifted position.

--

Rita Skeeter was incensed. One would not have needed to be a legilimens of any great power to see it as she stormed up the stairs, her hands balled into fists. It wasn't the invasion of her privacy that bothered her. She was no hypocrite in caring much about Ithat/I but why had it to be tonight! She slowed as she reached the door of her apartment. Sure enough, it was ajar though none of the alarms she'd set in place had alerted her to the intrusion.

Well one thing her intruder hadn't considered was the interfering nature of neighbouring old Muggle women. Given that she herself had only been gone half an hour, it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes after his entry that word had filtered down to the bar on the corner that a man had been seen sneaking in after dark to see that hussy in Number 13. Rita knew too well the sharpness of her neighbour's eye to doubt the veracity of the report and had been obliged to leave what she was doing and slip out unseen to come and investigate. And she'd had such high bloody hopes for young Mr. Gringott's-Treasure-Hunter too.

_Time to be a fly upon the wall._ Quickly Rita changed and slipped through the slight gap in the door and flew to where her would be burglar sat, head bowed and insensible to the world around him. _Snape. Well, he was certainly more devious than she'd given him credit for. Intriguing._ Curious to see what he was snooping through, Rita landed on the bed by his shoulder. Oblivious to her presence Snape muttered something under his breath. His finger moved to trace a particular line of the text:

_"His hand trailed lower on his stomach as he watched her from the shadows. Her skin seemed luminescent in the moonlight as she emerged inch by glorious inch from the lake, naked and glistening with droplets of water."_

Rita was immensely grateful that beetle bodies were not equipped for laughter as inside she howled with mirth. Several other of her manuscripts lay discarded beside him. Perhaps she should inform the Ministry of this newly discovered efficaciousness of the crimson quill in trapping trespassers.

Moving to the other side of the bed she changed back and lay with her head propped up on one hand, watching him in amusement.

"So, how are you enjoying my forays into fiction, Professor Snape?" she asked .

Snape's reaction was immediate and quite out of character. Startled from his reverie, he moved hastily to both rise to his feet and turn around at once, and so stumbled backwards against the writing desk and fell into the chair beside it. For a moment he stared at her in horror. Much more quickly than she would have thought possible however, he had recomposed himself and the sneer was back in place as he moved to stand. His momentary discomposition had been all the time Rita needed to get the upper hand, however, and she brandished her drawn wand threateningly to indicate he should keep his place.

Obeying the unspoken command, Snape remained sitting but held Rita's gaze unflinchingly.

"I had thought that fiction was _always_ your primary genre, Madam Skeeter," he said in what would have been a withering tone had his voice not trembled. Rita grinned in malevolent glee. Oh this was going to be _fun._

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat facing him, her wand still aimed squarely at his throat.  
"_Ms _Skeeter, Professor Snape. And right now I should watch my tongue if I were you."

Snape continued to glare at her, but his gaze seemed to have become a little unfocussed. His lips moved ever so slightly without his apparently being aware of it. Had it been any other man, Rita would have sworn he had silently formed the words _watch your tongue_ just after she had spoken. It was always good investigative technique to test a theory. Rita slowly crossed her legs, allowing her short skirt to hitch up higher on her thigh. There was no mistaking it. Snape's eyes flickered down to her legs briefly, and he unconsciously wet his lips.

Rita leaned back and considered him. There was something in this man that caught her attention. She idly wondered if it was some affinity of mindset between their lifestyles. She of course was a crusader for the truth, while he had simply been a retained spy, but there were similarities there, were there not? Well in any event, the man deserved to be punished and right now teasing him herself seemed a far more attractive idea than calling in the ministry's buffoons.

"Take off your over-robe, Professor."

_"What!"_

"Your robe. Take it off. An ex Death Eater like yourself could have any manner of weapons hidden about his person."

He stared at her aghast.

"Don't make me go for help, Severus."

Still he made no move. She shook her wand at him and at last he moved to comply. Shooting her a poisonous look he tugged the robes over his head and threw them at her. Never moving her wand, Rita caught them, gave them a cursory glance and then tossed them aside with a smug smile. He sat before her now looking almost Muggle-like. Albeit like an impoverished Muggle who bought his clothes from charity shops still trying to sell off merchandise from the last century. The breeches he wore were worn at the knees and his shirt had only one remaining button and bore the stains of his trade.

It wasn't his clothes that kept her attention though. Rita couldn't help it. She just had a _thing _for wiry muscle and Snape, though lean to the point of seeming emaciated in his robes was unexpectedly well-built for all that. Oh yes, this evening was definitely looking up.

"Now, professor, are you going to tell me _why_ I've come home to find you snooping around my boudoir?"

"Don't give me that," spat Snape with convincing venom. "I know you were watching me today. I came to see what sort of debauched and fabricated story you'd written on me."

Rita laughed and tossed her platinum curls. "Silly man. Do you think I'd waste my time on that? It was Mundungus Fletcher I was following. He met some _very_ interesting contacts shortly after leaving you." She paused for a moment in thought. "But writing a story on you? The elusive former Death Eater returned to the light, now inspiring young minds in Hogwarts? Writing a story on you, oh yes that _could _be interesting."

Severus Snape was annoyed. Severus Snape was unsettled. Rita Skeeter was amused.

With her free hand she reached over to her bedside table and picked up a distinctively green Quik Quotes Quill. Standing then, she crossed the gap between them and undid the sole remaining button of his shirt so it fell away from his chest. Then she placed the quill so that it hovered just above his shoulder.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing, woman?" Snape snarled.

Rita smirked. "I'm writing a story on you, darling."

With that she resumed her seat on the bed and began to dictate. "The Daily Prophet's own Rita Skeeter was recently granted a private and exclusive interview with Potions Master at Hogwarts and former follower of You Know Who, Severus Snape."

As she spoke, the inkless quill skittered across Snape's clavicle, leaving faint red marks in its wake.

"Now then, Severus," she continued. Snape stared at her in disbelief. Unabashed, Rita went on. "Professor Snape, when it was first revealed that you had turned aside from your old ways many people were sceptical, despite the support given to you by Albus Dumbledore. Do you feel their suspicion was warranted?" She looked at him expectantly, waiting for a reply.

"What are you playing at? If you're going to call the ministry then just do it, you imbecilic wom-Iaah/I!" His breath hissed between his teeth. His tirade had taken the lines of text further down his chest and the nib of the quill had just scratched over the sensitive flesh of his nipple.

"I'll take that to mean 'no comment," said Rita with a smirk.

The quill moved on, coming closer to the trapped professor's other nipple.

"Paragraph break!" barked Rita suddenly, and her quill stopped short and jumped back to the left and further down towards Snape's stomach. Try as he would, he couldn't suppress a slight moan.

"Did you say something, Severus?" Rita asked innocently.

"I called you an imbecile," he replied.

"Tell me, professor," she continued, setting the quill in motion once more. "What is it that attracted you to the career of teaching? Do you find you have a rapport with the children? A connection? An empathy? An overwhelming desire to impart your wisdom?"

Snape listened to her deliberately verbose question with impatience, trying desperately to ignore the light scratching of the quill which had now passed his navel. His anger was nearing the end of its tether.

"Are you almost finished with this ridiculous charade?" he demanded.

"But Severus, I thought you liked to have your skin marked," pouted Rita. "Now do answer the question, honey, my readers are simply dying to know."

Whether it was the oblique reference to his Dark Mark or the fact that the flourish of the last 'y' had dipped well below the waistline of his pants which pushed him over the edge Snape himself could not say. But suddenly he could take it no more and darted forward from the chair. Catching her by surprise he grabbed her wand arm and held it fast.

The tables were turned. For a moment they stayed there, not moving. There faces were inches apart as they sized each other up. Snape began to increase the pressure on Rita's wrist until she hissed in pain and let her hand go slack, sending her wand tumbling to the ground.

She waited, furious at her lapse in attention, for Snape to either make good his escape or, more likely, to grab her wand and treat her to some retaliation for his humiliation. He did neither. Instead, he caught her other hand too and guided her firmly back onto the satin covers of the bed. Releasing one of her wrists he broke eye contact and brushed his hand over the fabric of her dress. Her left arm remained trapped beneath his weight as he remained bent over her, his feet still planted on the bedroom floor.

Rita's annoyance at herself eased as Snape began to run his long fingers against her sides and along her neck. A conditional victory, she decided, was quite satisfactory if these were to be the terms. She slipped her hands under his shirt to roam over his back as he trailed his lips against her neck. His mouth met hers and his tongue flicked snakelike against her lips, teeth and tongue, tantalising her.

With a feline growl, she tugged hard at the waist of his trousers. He overbalanced and fell onto the bed with her, his teasing mouth now pressed hard against hers. She pursued the advantage and kissed him deeply. This time there was no denying the moan that escaped his throat.

She moved to push his shirt back off his shoulders, but he instantly pulled away with a sharp, fierce shake of his head.

"I believe _Ms_ Skeeter I broke your serve. The ball is now in Imy/I court."

Rita hesitated and then gave a one shouldered shrug. The curl of her lip suggesting she still foresaw plenty of time to win the game and would throw him an easy ball this time. Relinquishing her hold on his shirt she lay back among the cushions and flashed him a challenging look.

Snape felt a stab of triumph as he sat back on his knees. Taking her left foot in his hands he slipped off her shoe and ran his fingers along her instep. He watched her shudder slightly then stroked her ankle, her leg, the back of her knee, her thigh. All the time he kept watching her face, cataloguing in his mind her reactions to each different stimulus. Emboldened by her responses he moved forward, one knee inching higher and higher between her legs as he crawled up the bed.

Assured of his control now, he unbuttoned the front of her dress, uncovering her body to his calculating gaze. Black satin underclothes, the tops of those fishnet hold-ups and the rest glorious pale white skin.  
He caught her eye again and saw that she was smirking. She raised her hand to the back of her head and tossed her curls again in a mock pose. She was laughing at him! IWell, they'd see who had the last laugh./I

Lowering his head, he began a more determined assault.

Rita gasped in delight as Snapes fingers and tongue began to play over her body. Power games momentarily forgotten she simply basked in the feelings he was creating as he traced a path ever lower down her body. He was, she considered, just the sort of lover one might hope for in a professional potions maker. _Deliberate, calculating…_

_…Meticulous. That was it. Meticulous._

_…Meticulous._

_…'Ticulous._

_….Tickles._

_….Ticklesss. '_

_….Yes._

_….Yes._

_….YES!_

When breathing and vision returned she saw that Snape had sat up and once more was closely observing her. With a wicked grin she reached out and grabbed him again.

"My turn!" she grinned, pulling him down back down onto the bed.

--

The next morning Rita woke early, as she always did on Saturdays. She washed and dressed as she always did and gathered her things together as always for the day ahead.

Coming out of the bathroom, she threw a glance at the form form on the bed and hopped over to the chair where his robes were thrown. Silent as a spirit she slipped her hand into the right hand pocket and withdrew a small glass bottle. Checking once more to make sure that Snape hadn't awoken she unstoppered it and shook some of the tiny roots out into small square of parchment which she then folded tightly.

Replacing the robes Rita made her way to the door and blew a mocking kiss at the man on the bed. She smiled brightly and waved at her neighbour as she passed her in the corridor. After all, she mused, tucking the piece of parchment into her cleavage; she had her reputation to consider.

_FIN_


End file.
